Nov 25, 2022
When President Joe Biden speaks about the "scourge" of gun violence, his go-to answer is to zero in on so-called assault weapons. America has heard it hundreds of times, including this week after shootings in Colorado and Virginia: The president wants to sign into law a ban on high-powered guns that have the capacity to kill many people very quickly. "The idea we still allow semi-automatic weapons to be purchased is sick. Just sick," Biden said on Thanksgiving Day. "I'm going to try to get rid of assault weapons." After the mass killing last Saturday at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, he said in a statement: "When will we decide we've had enough? ... We need to enact an assault weapons ban to get weapons of war off America's streets." When Biden and other lawmakers talk about "assault weapons," they are using an inexact term to describe a group of high-powered guns or semi-automatic long rifles, like an AR-15, that can